Discovery System Functions, Part 2

Faceted navigation. Consistent with the general search paradigm of working from general to specific, discovery interfaces provide lists of terms that can be clicked to narrow search results. These facets, derived from the result set, provide the means to select materials according to specific authors, subject terms, material types, date ranges, languages, or other categories. Most of the discovery interfaces present facets in a narrow column on the left side of the main search results, with an indicator of the number of results expected if a facet is selected. Patrons can select multiple facets as they navigate through the results to home in on the specific materials of interest. Other interface conventions include presenting a list of the facets selected during the search session, which can be deselected to re-expand the result set.

Recommendations

Enriched Records: In addition to the MARC records extracted from the ILS, many discovery products build enhanced content for collection items, including graphics that represent book jacket images or format indicators, tables of contents, summaries, reviews, and other information, often provided through a commercial service.